Since I like chais a lot in general, I thought I'd try this one on for fun and variety, after seeing it deeply discounted at a Sprouts. Maybe there's a good reason it was discounted a lot.

The dry-bag aroma is all cinnamon, and quite strongly so. The wet-bag aroma was almost all cinnamon, not quite as strong, but with a faintly musty or algal smell that I presumed to be the green tea trying to peek out from under the rug upon which cinnamon was stomping with unabashed zeal. Despite an ingredients listing of, in order, green tea, cinnamon, ginger root, allspice, natural cinnamon flavor (Really? Is this necessary?), clove, clove bud oil, and cardamom oil, I never did taste or smell the green tea much. I only and finally detected something besides cinnamon—cardamom—in the back end of sips, in later sips from a cup, and in the aftertaste. Fortunately I do like cinnamon and cardamom, but wondered where the ginger and cloves were in there.

Curiously, for as much as this mix is imbalanced toward cinnamon, it doesn't have as much warming quality as other cinnamon-heavy teas I've tried. At least if they're going to dump a barge load of that spice (and flavoring) into a batch, Stash ought make it a higher-quality, richer, warming kind. This was decent, but also somewhat flat, or wooden. I'll finish the box, for the drink isn't bad, and I hate to waste stuff, but it's not very good either. Stash Chai Green is a major step down from what it could be with better proportionality of what appear to be nice ingredients.

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